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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24687766">Gone Fishing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihilistic_Janitor/pseuds/Nihilistic_Janitor'>Nihilistic_Janitor</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NieR: Automata (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:01:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,370</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24687766</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihilistic_Janitor/pseuds/Nihilistic_Janitor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>2B wanders around after everything has been said and done, wondering what to do with herself. Mostly, she fishes, and talks to people, and wonders when it'll really sink in that the war is over.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>2B &amp; 9S (NieR: Automata)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Gone Fishing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There’s a chair made from scrap metal on the edge of the lake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s crude. It was made by someone who clearly didn’t know anything about furniture or metalwork. It has plates and bolts in odd places, and it’s shaped strangely, and it rocks a little side to side even on level surfaces. A rock is propped under one leg to steady it. A sack stuffed with grasses and found feathers serves as a cushion. Little meaningless tracks have been traced in the pebbles at the chair’s feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For all of its crudeness, 2B can’t help but feel proud. That chair belongs to her, through and through. It’s something she made, something she made for herself, and as she walks along the forest path to the lake and listens to the sounds of the birds and traces her fingers along the fishing rod she convinced one of the Resistance members to dig up for her, she can almost forget everything that happened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Almost.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A glint of light shines through the trees, and she breaks into a jog, and then into a run. The lake! There are a lot of lakes she knows of, but this one is secluded, and quiet, and nobody bothers her here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gravel and pebbles and mud squish together under her feet and she kicks off her shoes, feeling the lakebed between her toes. The little can of worms she collected, both mechanical and biological, is placed tenderly next to the chair. The rod is tested, 2B taking her time and swinging the rod lightly around and not really caring about doing it right, just enjoying the swish of it as it moves through the air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she baits, and casts, and slowly leans back into the chair— </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span> chair— and lets her mind drift with the lure. Her toes trace more little tracks in the mud. The sun warms her cool skin. The lure twitches, and her attention is drawn, but it stills, and she relaxes again. It takes time. These things take time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks about 9S, as a frog begins to croak somewhere. About the things he said when they woke up. About how he acted. About the haunted look he gave her. About the way he’d thrown his goggles off the rooftop. Her hand goes up to her own goggles, the black band still firmly on her face. Her uniform rustles in the breeze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks about Pascal’s village standing empty. About the crumbled remains of some kind of tower, in the middle of the city ruins. About the machines, wandering around lost. About the ruins of the Bunker.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks about YoRHa. About her friends, lying dead around the city. About the ones she’d had to kill herself. She thinks about 9S again. She thinks about her designation, her real one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The line twitches again, more firmly, and the thoughts are left by the wayside. More important matters demand 2B’s attention, like the fish on the end of her line. The struggle is quick— she’s gotten very good at not snapping the line, at applying just the right amount of force to bring the fish up into the light.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A northern pike. The start of a question to her Pod to identify it formed on her lips, and then died there. Her Pod wasn’t with her— wasn’t really her Pod anymore, exactly. She’d just have to remember the question for later.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She admires the fish, and then throws it back into the water. Why cost it its life? She’s tired of costing lives. Let the fish be fish, enjoy their lake. Just seeing them is more than enough for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her line is cast again, and her thoughts skim once more over the surface of the water. She thinks about A2, about what they’d shared before 2B had died. About the feeling of slipping away piece by piece, feeling herself consumed by the virus. About knowing it was the end. About trusting A2. About asking her to take care of 9S. About nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>About waking up from nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She still didn’t know if A2 was alive. Anemone hadn’t seen her since the tower fell. It was a shame. Next to getting a chance to talk to 9S again, and to tell him how much he meant to her, and everything, being able to finally speak to A2 face to face without death hanging over everything was the foremost thing on her mind when she woke up. But she hadn’t really had the chance to do either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fishing was a close third, though. The thoughts swirling around her mind couldn’t hope to stand in the way of the lake’s indomitable serenity. And, surely 9S would come back to her, and then they could talk. Surely news about A2 would reach her. Surely she’d find out what happened to Pascal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was free to sit by the lake now. Nobody needed her anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, 2B.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s on her feet before she’s even processed who that voice belongs to, already whirling around in the ankle-deep water, her rod forgotten, her fists up. Enemies. Danger. Always around. The war isn’t over it’s never over there will always be murderous machines and deserters and betrayers and oil oil oil so much oil— </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s only me, 2B.” Pascal. It’s Pascal. Safe, and alive. Something like chagrin fills 2B up, and her fists drop back to her sides.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pascal! You survived.” She’s a little surprised at how relieved she sounds. It’s still a little strange counting him as a friend after how long she spent thinking of the machines as the enemy, and only as the enemy. Then again, she had murdered her fellow androids time and again. Maybe she just didn’t really know what ‘enemy’ means anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, I did.” His voice carries a weight of melancholy with him, and 2B reminds herself of what she saw in the village. Bodies. She looks a little closer at him as he slowly lowers himself onto the gravel to sit, and she notices how much less...animated he is. Him movements are slower, more somber, they don’t carry the expressiveness they used to. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B gets up from her chair and goes to sit next to him on the gravel instead. He doesn’t look at her, just watching the lake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pascal, what happened?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He still doesn’t look at her, instead picking up a pebble and turning it over in his metal hand. Her rod drifts by— she dropped it in the water when she was startled, that’s right— so she reaches out and takes it, setting it down next to herself. Pascal starts to raise a hand, as though about to gesture with his speech like normal, but he seems to think better of it and merely lets his hand fall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The village is gone, 2B.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He clasps his hands together in his lap. “I failed them. That was what happened. I tried to lead and I failed. And instead of me, they paid the price.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B stays silent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You asked me about A2, what feels like forever ago. Well, she saw it all happen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She didn’t—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, she was nothing but kind to me, to all the villagers. It was a shock to her, I think, that we could be pacifists, but she warmed up to us fast. She was just there, helping me try to protect the last of the village. Helping me protect the children. But they...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry.” 2B is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I asked her to do something. To try and make it so I didn’t have to face what happened. But she didn’t. She walked away, and all she said was that I had to live with my mistakes to learn from them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B stares at the water. She wonders if 9S ever heard A2 say anything like that, or if he took it to heart. She wonders if maybe she should take it to heart herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I walked for a long time away from there, 2B. I still couldn’t face it, couldn’t talk about it. I was alone, or I felt it. I don’t know. I haven’t seen A2 since.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B looks over at him. He’s trembling, his hands not staying still. He still won’t look at her. His words are just coming out. It doesn’t seem like he’s talking to her, exactly. He’s just talking. Letting the things that happened to him out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I found a library. A ruin. Filled with old, left behind books. I stayed there a long time. It could almost make me forget. But then the machines came. Lost. The network is gone. For everyone. Did you know that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They came to me, tried to ask me what they should do. They wanted me to guide them. They wanted me to lead. And I couldn’t. Not again. I couldn’t do that again. But I was willing to teach. To tutor. Just not to lead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what happened to them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know. I started walking again when I thought they could educate themselves. I hope they’re alright.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, he turns to look at her. His eyes are green, like always, but they seem duller somehow. Like there’s a layer of grime over the lenses that wouldn’t quite rub out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t realize I’d come back until I saw you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, what happened to you, 2B?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B thinks for a moment. “I died. Then the Pods brought me back, and now I fish.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pascal trails one of his fingers through the water, watches the ripples. 2B watches them too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened to 9S?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you seen A2?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not since I died.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B toys with her fishing rod. Pascal sits quietly. The silence is filled up by waves and birds and breezes rustling leaves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, 2B asks, “Pascal, do you know how to fish?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want me to teach you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pascal turns to look at her again. 2B smiles at him. It seems like he could use a little serenity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d like that, 2B.”</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>2B left the fishing rod with Pascal. It’s almost funny how confident she is about that decision. The rod is something that truly belongs to her, something she didn’t think she’d want to let out of her sight. Pascal seemed to understand that, though, and had borrowed it with reverence. He probably couldn’t have been more careful if she’d handed him her OS chip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It still left her with nothing to do, though. The sun filters down through the trees as she walks in the vague direction of the Resistance camp. Not that she knows exactly why it’s called a Resistance anymore. It’s just where the few people she knows are. The few people she can talk to. Anemone. Also, uh, weaponsmith guy? Machine head girl?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows Jackass, too, but Jackass isn’t really a talky sort of person. Not that she isn’t alright to visit. 2B just thinks that explosives might be a little bit unsettling to her right now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B hears them going off sometimes when she’s trying to sleep, just outside her bedroom, even when there aren’t any outside. It makes her shake. It makes her wonder when she can stop fighting. It makes her hands go to the katana propped up by her bed. She can’t sleep without it there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe she’ll ask about 9S. She hasn’t yet, for some reason, but seeing Pascal again makes her wonder. Maybe she could talk to him, take him fishing, find out what happened to him. What had made him so different. What had changed him so much.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It was your death. He couldn’t handle it.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>A2.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B stopped and looked around, but the forest was empty around her. No androids, no machines, just animals and plants and sunlight and wind. That happened, sometimes, too. A2 would speak, despite 2B never seeing her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She starts walking again. A2 must have misunderstood what happened to 9S. 2B is certain that 9S would know she would want him to move on. To live without having her hanging over him all the time. To be free.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t like she could bring him anything but pain, no matter what she wanted. It’s in her designation, after all. Hardwired into her being. She couldn’t take it out any more than she could walk around after ripping out her OS chip. Tragedy was her identity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She likes fishing, though. Fishing isn’t tragic. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she did want to talk to 9S again. If only for a little bit. A little talk couldn’t do any harm. She couldn’t hurt him by just talking. Not much, anyway. Not much, she hopes. And seeing his face again would be nice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She passes through the shopping center. Her uniform flutters. She thinks about t-shirts. This was the time 9S talked about, wasn’t it. When he wanted to go shopping together. When everything was over. When everything was finished. When they weren’t needed to fight anymore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wonders what kind of t-shirt he would buy her. She wonders if he’d like how she looked in it. She wonders if that’s a silly thing to wonder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bridge over the ravine is sturdy as ever. She wonders who built it. She wonders if maybe it was an android, or a machine. She wonders if she might meet them one day. She wonders if they would be able to tell her about how to make her chair better. They did a good job on the bridge. It barely swings at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So many machines are dead. So many androids are dead. So many of both are dead because of her. She wonders if maybe she already has met the one who built the bridge, and killed them. She walks off into the city ruins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The little pond outside the camp is as familiar as ever. She looks to see if maybe she can catch a glimpse of Howard. He’s a fish she caught and released so many times that she felt like he’d earned a name. He’s a machine koi. He’s as friendly as a metal fish can possibly be. He’s her friend, too. As much as he can be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks she sees him. He has a rusty scrape by his left-hand fin. She thinks he must have gotten it in a fight, but now it’s how she knows she found him again. She knows his scars.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Resistance camp isn’t exactly happy to see her, but then, she wonders if they can be exactly happy to see anyone. They’ve lost so many people. Everyone has. But she does get some friendly waves, and her room is over by the access point, and her bed is well-worn, and her sheets are still a little rumpled, and the weapon-seller whose name she feels really bad for not asking for again asks her how the fishing was and where her fishing rod is, and she tells him she was showing a friend how to fish, and he smiles and tells her it sounds like she had a nice time, and she smiles back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anemone isn’t in her usual spot, which is a little worrying, but one of her friends lets 2B know that she’s not off doing anything dangerous, just off visiting someone, so 2B just goes and makes small talk with the maintenance specialist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then, out of the corner of her ear, she hears someone say “9S.” It’s not anyone she really knows, just someone she’s talked to once or maybe twice, but she goes over anyway, and she asks, and it turns out the woman heard a rumor about him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s off in the desert, I think, somewhere,” she says. “He seemed angry, but he always kind of does, you know? Just stopped here long enough to get a little maintenance. Barely even mentioned where he was going, or so I heard. He’s been gone a while. I hope he’s okay. You two are heroes, you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B doesn’t feel like a hero, but she thanks the woman anyway.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>2B always forgets how big the desert feels. The sands stretch and stretch as far as she can see, with nothing breaking them up save for the occasional scrap of ruined building. The man at the camp told her Jackass was off in the caves with someone, if she wanted to talk to Jackass, but 2B waved him off. She had a different destination in mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wants to find 9S, of course. But there was a whole desert to search, and she doesn’t have a Pod to scan for him. And he can take care of himself. And maybe taking her time would give her a chance to get her stomach to quit flip-flopping so much. She’d head for the one place that always calmed her down. The oasis.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s secluded, it’s peaceful, and even though she doesn’t have her rod the water is clear enough there that she can just watch the fish. She actually hasn’t been there since she woke up. Going through the desert always seemed like a lot to handle for the moment. But she has a reason to be in the desert now, so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her shoes skid on the sand, and she dallies further still, running up sand dunes and sliding down them. It’s fun, in a pointless, silly kind of way. A kind of safe, relaxed exhilaration. The machines still out here in their inscrutable masks watch her from a long way off over the sand. She doesn’t mind. She’s not here to fight, and neither are they anymore. Nobody is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has to remind herself of that sometimes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With that thought bringing tension back into her muscles, 2B starts heading for the oasis again. The wind picks up, as it always does. Perpetual storming. The sand whips her face, stings her cheeks, but her goggles protect her eyes. They always do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then she crests the right sand dune, the one she remembers, and the wind abates. The sand settles back down, and she winds up tracing her way along the trees to the little splash of water in endless desert.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s not the only one at the oasis.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that she was alone when she visited before. There was a YoRHa soldier here, 16B, who seemed content to stay at the oasis as long as she was able. But YoRHa had fallen. 2B had seen it. And she hadn’t really held out any hope that her friend was still there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>16B liked fish, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d survived, though, somehow. 2B could see her, bent over a prone figure on a tarp. 2B calls out before she can think better of it, and 16B looks up and calls back and stands, and 2B winds up running to her and putting her hands on 16B’s shoulders and asking if she’s okay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course I’m okay, 2B.” She sounds a little puzzled. “It’s not like the machines ever come out this far.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m glad.” 2B is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anyway, could you give me a hand? Your friend came here and—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B looks down at the prone figure, at 9S, and her heart skips a beat. He’s in bad shape. He has cuts and scrapes that the sand’s gotten into, and his eyes are closed and caked with grime, and he’s barely breathing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened?” 2B asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know. He just staggered in a little while ago. I’ve been trying to help him as best I could, but other than getting him off the sand I didn’t really know what to do. I gave him water? That should help, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B tells 16B that she can handle it, and 16B brings over one of the supply boxes she has with her at the oasis, and 2B starts cleaning 9S’s wounds. 16B looks on nervously, shifting from foot to foot. 2B wonders if she’s spent long enough here that she forgot what happens in war. 2B is a little envious. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B hasn’t forgotten, though. The field repair skills come to her like she was made a medic. It’s a little worrying, the more she sees of 9S’s injuries. They aren’t the sorts of injuries he would get from fighting something too big for him to handle, they’re the sorts of injuries every android knows to prevent with regular maintenance. They’re the sorts of injuries that come from fighting for too long, in too hostile environments, and as she blows the sand out from his fuel filter she wonders why he let himself get like this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t do this to yourself, 9S.” She doesn’t exactly mean to say it out loud, but she does anyway. It’s fine. The only one there to hear is 16B, and she’s a friend. 2B is sure she understands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a lot of work to get 9S fixed up, and throughout it 16B brings water and kind words and encouragement. 2B still has to do the actual work. 16B retches when she sees 9S’s chest open, and has to stare at the oasis for a good little while before she’s calmed down. It’s almost odd, to 2B, to see that kind of reaction to field repairs. But then, maybe there’s a reason 16B was out here this whole time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Time doesn’t mean much at the oasis, so 2B doesn’t really know how long repairs take. She just knows the repairs are done when she brushes the last of the sand out of 9S’s eyes. He looks like he could just be peacefully napping in their room at the Resistance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B lays a hand on his cheek. She almost misses it. They weren’t good times, but they were together, at least.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then 9S opens his eyes, and she feels his boot crash against her chest, and she’s tumbling head over heels over the sand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s standing there. His fists are up. He’s panting slightly. His eyes are on her, but they keep breaking away for little split-second bursts to check his surroundings. He doesn’t have his goggles anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B pushes herself up into a sitting position. She’s not paying attention to the damage he did with his kick: she’s survived so much worse. She’s focused on him, on how he clearly needs her help, on how wild and scared and hurt he looks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>16B is cowering behind a crate of supplies. 2B can’t really blame her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I killed all of you!” he yells across the sand. “So why are you still following me? Why can’t I get away from you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B stands up, hands open and relaxed. She doesn’t say anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>9S takes a step back. “You’re gone. You died. Why do I keep seeing you? Why can’t I get you out of my head? Why won’t you just go away?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B walks towards him, slowly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>9S takes another step back. His fists are shaking. “You’re dead. A2 killed you. I need to kill A2. Is A2 dead? I need to kill her. I need to avenge—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B shakes her head. She’s in arm’s reach now, and 9S isn’t lashing out. He’s just trembling. There are tears running down his cheeks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>gone</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m here, 9S.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You— you’re—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On some impulse, some hope that maybe she can give 9S a little bit of the serenity she found by the lakeside, she pulls him into a hug. 9S tenses, and trembles, and starts to say something, but all that comes out is a sob. And then they sink together onto the sand, and 2B is holding him as he cries. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t— I— you—” 9S’s words are coming out in meaningless bursts and starts and stops, spilling out of his mouth onto the sand. 2B doesn’t mind. It’s all been so much. She doesn’t know what exactly happened while she was dead, but she knows that it was a lot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wonders why 9S thought A2 killed her. She’d thought he’d understood, that he’d known 2B well enough to see why things had to be that way. To see why she had to give that to A2. To understand that she just wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nines...” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His crying slows, and stops, and he awkwardly unwraps 2B’s arms from around him. He doesn’t say anything. He just looks away from her. One of his arms goes to his other forearm, squeezes slightly, almost like he’s reassuring himself that he’s still there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you like to sit with me and 16B?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods, shallowly. 2B leads him over the sand to the gentle, easy stillness of the oasis. They sit down together. 16B takes a seat on the other side of 2B, and before 16B can stare too long at 9S and wonder what happened to him since she saw him last, 2B has wrapped her up in a mild conversation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>16B seems relieved to chat, even if it’s about nothing in particular. One of the things she mentions offhandedly is that the other few friends who came to visit her out here stopped coming a while ago. She was relieved to see 2B again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The reason why her friends stopped visiting is something 2B wants to hold secret, but 9S says, “They’re all dead.” His first and only contribution to the conversation thus far.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” 16B looks at 2B, suddenly worried. “What does he mean, 2B? Did something happen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B hugs her knees to her chest and stares at the water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“YoRHa fell. There was a backdoor. Everyone was taken over by the machines. I killed them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>16B looks shocked and sick. 2B feels a lump of cold terror. Is that what he’d been doing since she’d died? Killing the infected androids? Is that why he’d stopped maintaining himself? She didn’t want him to— he wasn’t— it was a burden she had to—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>9S stands. He picks up his sword from where it had been resting against a few supply crates. “I’m going.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>2B says, “I’m going with you.” 9S stops. 2B looks at 16B, and tells her, “The Resistance camp is fine. Maybe go there, tell everyone you’re still okay.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>16B nods, and flicks the water with one finger. “I guess I’ll see you two later.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They walk off into the sand.</span>
</p>
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